Some Charlottesville residents find the new mural on the side of Six Hundred West Main to be tone-deaf. Photo Credit: Staff Photo
The developers of Six Hundred West Main, a luxury apartment building that opened in September, promised the city a “gift” in the form of a public mural from internationally acclaimed artist Faith XLVII.
But some residents may want to give it back.
The mural, which was unveiled during the week of September 23, features a horse and the word “LIBERATE” against a dark green background. Working with the Charlottesville Mural Project, the artist, a white South African, designed the piece to pay “homage to the equine history of the area while subtly harkening to both historical and contemporary notions of Freedom that are tied strongly to Charlottesville’s identity,” according to the proposal.
“Looking at this mural, I’m guessing that maybe they meant residents could ‘LIBERATE’ themselves out of $2,200 for a 1BR,” tweeted Charlottesville journalist Jordy Yager, who posted a thread on the mural on September 25. Others chimed in to criticize the building, where rents range from $1,240 to more than $4,300, and which is set to expand to the University Tire site next door.
In an email, Yager pointed out that Six Hundred West Main is surrounded by two historically black neighborhoods, yet their residents were not invited to participate in the mural creation process.
“[This is] another example of integral voices being left out of the conversations that shape the city around us. Not only are key people being left out of the actual building, in terms of being able to afford to live there, but they’re also being left out of the art that they have to walk past every day,” says Yager.
To Charlottesville native Niya Bates, the horse image recalls the Confederate statues, and she finds it offensive and tone-deaf. On Twitter, Bates had previously called attention to the building’s “neighborhood guide,” which featured upscale spots like Purvelo and IX Art Park but excluded black businesses and institutions, calling it “a cheat code to gentrification 2.0.” She said the mural was also “a missed opportunity to elevate and work with someone in our own community.”
FaithXLVII, one of the most famous female street artists in South Africa, originally agreed to speak with C-VILLE for this story. But she later requested questions be sent by email, after which her publicist Kassia Rico responded by declaring that the submitted questions, which asked for Faith’s response to the controversy, were “biased,” and that the artist would not respond to them.
“Faith is an artist that is actively involved in promoting Human Rights, issues of LGBTQ, and Gender Equality. In her studio practice, the horse is a symbol that she is currently working with that stands for the freeing of oneself from various forms of oppression and it is about personal and social liberation,” Rico wrote.
“We hope the residents of Charlotsville [sic] can understand this artwork in this manner, and not the overtly political manner that you are suggesting.”
Faith later replied herself, saying “if anything, the artwork stands in direct opposition” to the Confederate monuments. She then sent a 172-word statement on the mural’s symbolism, featured below.
The issue, says resident and art historian Andrea Douglas, is that the mural “has nothing to do with the kinds of issues that Charlottesville is living with today…. In some ways it’s emblematic and correct. And in other areas it is absolutely in discord with the space that it wants to occupy.”
Artist’s statement:
“The imagery of a rearing horse, sometimes bridled but with reigns flying loose, signifies a powerful animal which has been subjugated by humankind, and has finally broken free. The image of the horse carries with it the weight of nationalism and patriotism, and is associated with memorials and statues of statesmen and war “heroes”. Historically, they were the creatures men took to war, to fight and die alongside them with unrelenting loyalty. Inescapably majestic and elegant in their powerful and muscular form, horses have an inherent sense of nobility.
Within this discrepancy between their physical power and their subservience, they become archetypal symbols for notions of human power struggles, war, nationalism and blind loyalty to leadership. By unleashing or freeing these dignified creatures through these images, we understand their own sense of agency, independent from human quests, ultimately expressing their own innate power.
Shedding their shackles, the figures in this series conjure sentiments of resistance, revolution, and our individual, innate strength and ability to stand up to fascist rule and totalitarian power.” – FAITH XLVII
Updated 10/9/19 to provide complete quote from Andrea Douglas.
Six Hundred West Main, an apartment complex being constructed behind Blue Moon Diner, is also running behind schedule. Courtesy of Six Hundred West Main
When we last heard from the owner of Blue Moon Diner in May, she said she was closing the West Main Street institution for renovations until early 2018. Now, as the new year is upon us, Laura Galgano says it could be fall before the lights come back on at the beloved home of the huevos bluemoonos.
Not surprisingly, diner regulars are upset.
“The diner is Charlottesville’s living room,” says Dolly Joseph, who has worked as a hostess during weekend brunch at Blue Moon for the past couple years. When her mom came to town last week, the former employee says they talked about how much they missed Blue Moon for its affordable food and good company. “The diner was where I knew I could always find a familiar face,” she adds.
Joseph, Galgano and Ellen Krag run a nonprofit called Building Experiences, and Joseph says the diner is their home base for mentoring young adults. While Rapture on the Downtown Mall has served them well as a temporary location, the team is eager to go back home, she says.
“All my favorite people are waiting for the diner to open again so we can see each other for Wednesdays with Jim Waive, or a weekend brunch or a study group with BE,” says Joseph.
Likewise, local country-blues-rock musician Susan Munson says she misses her regular gigs at the diner.
“I was so bummed when it closed,” Munson says. “I don’t play as much now during the week, just mainly on the weekends. It actually became one of my favorite places to play, even though it was a tight fit.”
Galgano, who has held several Blue Moon pop-up brunches since the diner closed, says its reopening is “somewhat” dependent on the construction of a six-story mixed-use apartment complex going up behind it, which is also taking longer than expected.
“We have had several approval delays that, quite frankly, are the boring parts of complex development,” says developer Jeff Levien. His team anticipates that construction on the project called Six Hundred West Main will begin next spring, and will be completed by mid-2019.
The apartment complex “merges two historically significant street-front buildings with new construction in the form of a mixed-use, distinctly modern, luxury rental residence,” Levien says in a press release. “It is being purposefully integrated into the most vital, diverse and connected neighborhood in Charlottesville.”
The 65,000-square-foot building will have 53 studio, one- and two-bedroom spaces for rent, with private terraces, eight-foot windows, high ceilings and a “meditative courtyard,” according to the release. It’ll also have retail spaces, and Levien says he may lease some offices above Blue Moon.
The developer describes his project as “upscale, without having lost its edge,” and says it’s the “creative result of the old economy raising itself up with new favor to become an urbane playground.”
He compares it to composing a song, where the team is the band and the music is the building they’ve created.
Says Levien’s wife, Ivy, who’s had a hand in designing the project, “Is it a little rock ‘n’ roll? Definitely. But it’s where rock ‘n’ roll goes to kick back.”
Bulldozers continue to change the Charlottesville landscape. Photo by Skyclad Aerial
By: Lisa Provence and Samantha Baars
It’s the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love, and while we’re celebrating that, C-VILLE decided to take a look at construction projects underway that will change the way the city looks—and in some cases, inconvenience us mightily during the coming months.
These are projects visibly in the works. And they won’t come cheap. Among the upcoming residential efforts, “affordable housing” will not be a phrase used to describe them.
Other projects are lining up for the future, including the demolition of the Main Street Arena next summer to construct tech hub Taliaferro Junction. And you can say you learned it here first: It’s pronounced “tolliver.”
Get your hard hats and earplugs ready for the summer of mud. And snap those “before” pictures now, because by 2067, you won’t see the landscape we currently inhabit.
Downtown
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William Taylor Plaza
Fairfield Inn and Suites
Ridge Street and Cherry Avenue
Owner: Virginia Hotel Properties LP
Number of rooms: 119
Development status: Completed by second quarter of 2018.
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When the 2.9-acre parcel on the corner of Ridge Street and Cherry Avenue was rezoned for mixed use in 2009, neighbors didn’t necessarily foresee a hotel as the commercial component of the project. And when developer Charlie Armstrong pitched a Fairfield Inn and Suites sans residential portion in 2015, the project temporarily ground to a halt until Southern Development came back with a residential component.
Southern Development sold part of the property to Keystone Hotel Management, which is developing the hotel and will manage the property for Marriott. The construction of the 100-plus-room hotel, with underground parking, is well underway. Marriott VP Dave Medis says to look for its opening in the second quarter of 2018.
And there’s still a residential portion to come. Management Services Corporation has BAR approval for a 27-unit upscale apartment project.
Home2 Suites
201 Monticello Ave.
Developer: Baywood Hotels, Greenbelt, Maryland
Number of rooms: 113; four stories
Development status: Under construction.
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Baywood is a development company that does only hotels, senior VP Vik Patel told C-VILLE last year, and the Coran Capshaw-owned former Portico Church location’s “proximity to the Downtown Mall attracted us to this site,” Patel said. Home2 Suites by Hilton are extended-stay hotels with a “boutique-y feel,” according to Patel. Although the hotel will have a fitness center and indoor pool, it won’t have a restaurant or a bar.
West2nd
200 Second St. SW
Developer: Keith Woodard
Number of condos: 65; 10 stories
Development status: Ground-breaking scheduled for this summer.
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Formerly called Market Plaza, this $50 million project will be built on the metered parking lot that used to house City Market, and the space will still serve as the permanent home of the uber popular Saturday shopping destination. When the market is not in session, the half-acre lot will be used for other events.
Developer Keith Woodard calls West2nd’s 65 condos, which will range from $400,000 to more than $1 million, “very deluxe” and says every room will have a spectacular view of the city.
The complex is scheduled to open by summer 2019. It will also include retail and office spaces, a restaurant and a bakery/café.
Landmark Hotel/The Dewberry
201 E. Water St.
Developer: John Dewberry
Number of rooms: 112
Development status: Board of Architectural Review meeting June 20; structural integrity report due July 1.
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Charlottesville’s most prominent eyesore is on the Downtown Mall, where it has been in skeletal disarray since construction ceased in 2009. But it has seen signs of life this year.
When developer John Dewberry purchased the Landmark Hotel for $6.25 million in 2012, his conversion of a Charleston, South Carolina, federal building into a five-star hotel was ahead of Charlottesville on his construction to-do list. The Dewberry Charleston opened last summer, he scored incentives from the city earlier this year, and the next hurdle is the Board of Architectural Review June 20.
Oh wait, there’s yet another hurdle—and we’re not talking about the 75 spaces the city promised Dewberry in the litigation-prone Water Street Parking Garage. A structural integrity report is due July 1 to determine whether the framework is still sound after years of being exposed to the elements.
Dewberry’s deluxe vision includes a spa, a rooftop bar on the 11th level with terraces on the north and south ends of the building, along with the 1,800-square-foot Founder’s Room.
Former Bank of America building
300 E. Main St.
Owner: Hunter Craig
Development status: Underway.
When Bank of America announced it was closing shop in its vintage 1916 building on the Downtown Mall last year, it left a banking void—for about five minutes. Another financial institute, Citizen & Farmers Bank, will occupy an 850-square-foot suite in the structure and is expected to open in July, but banking will be a minority activity in the historic
building. The 60,000-square-foot property spreads a couple of
doors down, and includes C-VILLE Weekly’s home.
The soaring bank lobby is slated to become a steakhouse. Pantheon Restaurants LLC, the people behind Lampo Neapolitan Pizzeria, has leased 9,000 square feet for a restaurant, according to Loren Mendosa. Construction has not begun there, although Mendosa notes that Lampo was nominated for best steakhouse in Best of C-VILLE 2017.
Another 25,000 square feet have been leased by CVL Society. Partners in the development haven’t announced details publicly, but the project will include executive offices and other areas designed to support downtown Charlottesville’s start-up scene with co-working, business incubation and accelerator space.
550 Water Street
550 E. Water St.
Developer: Andrew Baldwin with Core Real Estate and Development
Number of units: Five residential, three commercial
Development status: Under construction; scheduled to open next spring.
Click to enlarge. Staff photo
In this six-story building, the first two floors feature commercial office space while the top four are full-floor condos, and a low-rise wing structure offers a fifth residence and another commercial office suite. Condos are priced “north of $2 million,” according to developer Andrew Baldwin, who says only two residential units are still available.
At approximately 3,500 square feet each, the condos also offer 500-square-foot outdoor terraces, large windows with sliding glass exterior doors, private parking and high-end security systems.
C&O Row
1065 E. Water St.
Developer: Riverbend Development
Number of homes: 23
Development status: The first phase is under construction, the second should begin next spring or early summer, and the third phase is to be determined.
Click to enlarge. Staff photo
Local builders Martin Horn Inc. and Evergreen Home Builders offer different floor plans and customized home interiors, including options for all-brick interiors, dramatic open stair systems from the first to third floors and steel bathtubs. Ten of 12 lots in the first phase have already sold, with six of the homes in phase two hitting the market in late summer or early fall. The three-plus-bedroom homes with two-car garages range from 3,200 square feet to more than 3,700 square feet depending on finished space and rooftop access. Phase one prices range from $899,000 to $1.1 million.
“There is no one buyer profile,” says Lindsay Milby, an associate broker with Loring Woodriff Real Estate Associates. “Young families, single professionals and empty nesters are attracted to the concept. They like the idea of a brand new, easy-to-maintain custom home walkable to downtown.”
West Main
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The Autograph Hotel
1106 W. Main St.
Developer: Carr City Centers
Number of rooms: 150
Development status: Completed in fourth quarter of 2017.
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We feel like we’re getting into that pattern of “remember where Studio Arts used to be?” That’s where the latest luxury boutique hotel is going, another Marriott venture—the hotel chain’s third on West Main. The 10-story Autograph got underway after SunTrust Bank signed off on a $25.8 million loan to Carr City Centers last summer, according to Virginia Business. Whether it will be finished by the end of the year, well, we’re still waiting to hear from Carr City Centers.
The Standard
853 W. Main St.
Developer: Landmark Properties
Number of units: 189 apartments; 499-space parking garage
Development status: Targeted completion before school starts in 2018.
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The site of the former Republic Plaza, which was demolished over the winter, is mostly red dirt now, but when it’s complete, it will rise 70′ with six stories. The high-end student apartments—the third such project on West Main—has some calling the street West Grounds. Athens, Georgia-based Landmark Properties specializes in deluxe student housing, and it suffered a delay in completing a complex at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville last fall, leaving about 600 students homeless at the beginning of the semester, according to the UT Daily Beacon.
Six Hundred West Main
600 W. Main St.
Developer: Jeff Levien
Number of units: 53 apartments; six stories
Development status: Set for construction this summer.
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This 65,000-square-foot apartment complex will house a mix of studio and one- and two-bedroom units with parking underneath the building.
Design-wise, developer Jeff Levien looks to Oakhart Social, a restaurant across the street from his site, which used the building’s historic character in its design aesthetic by featuring the space’s original exposed brick walls and showcasing both “old and new,” he says. Architect Jeff Dreyfus is also on the job.
The building will incorporate two historic structures: the Hartnagle-Witt House and the Hawkins-Perry House, which are more easily recognizable as Blue Moon Diner and a small convenience store.
Quirk Hotel
501 W. Main St.
Developer: Bank Street Advisors
Number of rooms: 78-80; four floors off West Main Street and five off Commerce Street
Development status: Groundbreaking in early 2018; opening in mid-2019.
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This new hotel will be modeled after the original 75-room, four-floor Quirk Hotel and art gallery in Richmond. It will incorporate two historic structures, including Paxton Place, a home built in 1824, on a site where architect Bill Atwood was unable to get his six-story office building off the ground.
Owners Katie and Ted Ukrop—members of the family that operated the Ukrop’s Food Group and upscale grocery chain in Richmond—“will combine inspiration and passion from the Richmond location with the culture and creativity of the new Charlottesville home for a unique and welcoming concept,” according to a press release.
Urban ring
Sunset Overlook
Corner of Sunset Avenue Extended and Old Lynchburg Road
Developer: Andrew Baldwin
Number of homes: 27 townhomes, 14 detached homes
Development status: Construction completed within the next two months.
Developer Andrew Baldwin says these homes will be available within the next 30 to 45 days, with prices ranging in the $200,000s for townhomes and mid-$300,000s and up for single family houses.
The development is one mile away from Interstate 64, two miles away from 5th Street Station and 3.5 miles from the Downtown Mall.
Oak Hill
1132 Sunset Ave. Extended
Developer: Stanley Martin
Number of homes: 49 single family homes approved (83 proposed)
Development status: Under construction.
Sunset Overlook’s neighbor is Oak Hill, another subdivision in the works on the sleepier side of town. Developer Stanley Martin did not respond to requests for more information.
Beacon on 5th
100 Dalton Ln.
Developer: Castle Development Partners
Number of homes: 207 apartments, two carriage-style apartments and 32 townhouses
Development status: Completed by September.
More than 100 dwellings are already leased at this complex, which has a deluxe gym and pool, a cyber café, and is situated close to 5th Street Station, UVA and downtown.
“The views are outstanding,” says representative Debbie Joiner. “Some are almost like tree house homes.”
Homes in the pet-friendly community range from $1,200 to $2,129 per month.
Hillsdale Drive Extended
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Like most public road projects around here, the Hillsdale Connector has been talked about for decades—since the late 1980s, as far as we can tell. That’s why it’s somewhat shocking to learn that a completion date—October 30—is in sight.
The finished Hillsdale Drive will join East Rio Road with Hydraulic Road at Whole Foods, and provide a parallel way to head north without having to venture onto Route 29.
The last, southern section of Hillsdale already wends behind Homewood Suites, circles a roundabout at Zan Road and has torn through the north wing of Seminole Square Shopping Center, where it took out 6,700 square feet of commercial real estate and about 60 parking spaces, according to Great Eastern Management’s David Mitchell.
Great Eastern, which owns the shopping center, is trying to get permission to build retaining walls behind the north wing to add employee parking and delivery access, as well as reorient “the look of the building and the flow,” says Mitchell.
“We’re going to build walkways and bike paths behind and around the shopping center,” he says. “We’re not just sitting there looking at our building cut in half.”
Besides the construction that’s hit Seminole Square since late last year, the center does have another gaping hole, figuratively speaking: the vacant store that once housed Giant and has been leased by Kroger, which heralded a 100,000-square-foot, $28 million store, its “largest west of Richmond,” in an August 2016 press release.
“The project is on hold,” says Kroger real estate manager Fenton Childers. “Kroger is re-evaluating multiple projects across Virginia.” He declined to elaborate on the reason for putting on the brakes.
With Kmart closing in July, another empty big box looms. That site has been leased by Coran Capshaw and Hunter Craig and is looking for high-end tenants.
“We are actively negotiating with multiple great tenants that could be part of the future of the property,” writes John Pritzlaff, vice president of Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer, in an email. “Plans have not been finalized as of yet, so we do not have any defined commencement date for construction.”
Seminole Square still has Marshalls, and Ferguson Bath, Kitchen & Lighting Gallery will be opening in the former Office Depot space.
“It’s a great location,” says Mitchell. And once Hillsdale is complete, he predicts more people will turn north at Whole Foods, opening new opportunities for commercial real estate.
